13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
I'm a bit puzzled by your question. If you're planting rudbeckia now (which variety by the way), you should be dealing with growing plants, not dormant plants. Are you saying your plants die after you transplant them or do you always get them before they've sprouted (very early spring)or very late fall after they've gone dormant (I guess) although my rudbeckia keep their leaves through winter. Maybe other varieties don't. No clue.
Some are annuals, some biennials, some perennials, so it's kind of important to know which ones you've been dealing with. I'm not sure of this, but in my experience and in my zone rudbeckia seem to do better transplanted in spring. The ones I've tried to move in the fall (mainly Goldstrum) never make it through the winter.
Kevin
I was a little surprised to see that Swallowtail Garden Seeds classifies all Rudbeckia seed types as annuals. I know from experience they self-seed but evidently that's how they give the impression they're perennials. I've been yanking seedlings from the neighbor's lawn and they didn't plant Rudbeckia...I did!
The site is sunny, average-good moisture, soil is alkaline but good.
The soil here is acid and where I have Rudbeckia growing, it's nothing more than sand & rocks. They get full sun but they're on their own as far as nutrients & supplemental water. It's just a guess but maybe your soil is too good for them. I find they do best here if they are growing in the worst soil & get no care whatsoever, including water above & beyond what Mother Nature provides. That being said, I noticed they were just as happy this year with plenty of frequent rain as they were last year when we had 4 months of drought from June to October.
I should qualify these comments and state my plants were winter sown from seeds, not grown from nursery stock. Health & endurance-wise, winter sown plants are giant steps ahead of nursery-grown plants.
Thanks for responding, gardenweed. I posted here because I was getting sizes that were not consistant from the googling I did. One site would say that White Bouquet grows to 6 feet tall, and another said that is a more compact variety - whatever that means?????
Anyone else have White Bouquet in their garden?
Linda
At same age, if annualy cut to the ground White Bouquet is as large as Royal Red that is larger than Pink Delight.
One consistant source for size is Longstock Nursery listing:
http://www.longstocknursery.co.uk/buddleja-c31.html
Another "iffy" method is to dig a hole or trench, set the pots in to the top, then fill the trench with fallen leaves. I used this method successfully to over-winter a dozen roses in containers one year. I think it was a fairly mild winter, that helps too. I'm zone 6. Good luck. When I was a kid, my Mom had Mums that came back every year. I agree what they sell these days is less hardy.
This can be different in different varieties. The leaves on some of mine are already nearly 'gone', but none is 100% brown yet. The most important thing is whether you can see the new rosettes for the next year growth at the base of the old stems.
I get rid of things that don't bloom/grow reliably and plants that turn out to be more invasive than I can deal with.
Campanula is one plant I will never put in my gardens again and am not sure it I will ever get rid of it. Fall blooming anenome, the lavender one, will be pulled out except for a small amount which I will really need to keep a handle on.
I have a garden I just started under an oak tree. I was going to add Aster Divaricatum (just above), and also Biokovo Geranium.
My Ajuga is doing well in dry shade in a couple of places in the yard. Chocolate Chip has really taken off!
I don't remember if it's mentioned above, but Ceratostigma Plumbago has been a dry shade winner for me too.
Here is a garden under an ash tree in OH in it's 
even though the garden was just over a year old at the time, from previously being sparse grass. There are hostas, columbine, creeping phlox, Pulmonaria, Bergenia, Trillium, violets, Polemonium (jacob's ladder,) a few bulbs, Lamium, a little lilac, ready to be a tree if the ash got emerald beetle borers (I moved, remains a mystery,) and a few others I don't remember and can't see from this angle. 4" of mulch can retain moisture for weeks.
Of your list, I would avoid the Vinca. Just too sprawling/spready to play nice with the other plants. In general, you don't want vines in a flower bed. Entities like Vinca or Ajuga that rapidly spread really do best in their own, well-enclosed space. Spreading through other more self-contained plants, these spreaders can make the whole thing look like a confused mess. But, like most things-gardening, this is subject to your personal opinion on the matter.
I buy compost in bulk from Burnco , a place that sells landscaping rock, soil, brick and so forth. I put it on my flower garden in May but don't work it in much - leave it on top as a mulch - it seems to supress the weeds. If I get a chance, I will put some on again in the fall.
If it is a new bed, I work it into the existing soil as it has a lot of clay.
Definitely prune in the spring. You stand a chance of losing your BB over winter if you prune it back now.
Sometimes they break dormancy so late, many gardeners think they are dead. So be patient and wait quite a while before you give them a death certificate!
My daughter planted a Pink Delight this summer and my advice to her was to mulch it in heavily as soon as the really cold weather starts here. My experience has been that if you can get your BB through its first winter, you should have it for years. A little extra mulch over winter never hurts.
Linda
I'm happy I posted this. How about root-knot nematode? I found this previous thread on GW. Looks like it's curable.
What's really odd is that this plant has shown no signs of decline. It's been growing and blooming for years now.
Here is a link that might be useful: root-knot
I've not grown that particular BB, but in general Buddleia are known for dying over the winter, especially in z6 or lower. One thing most agree on is to wait until you see new growth in the spring before pruning/shaping. I've not tried to grow one in a container, but a container is considered to be at least 1 and usually 2 zones colder than where you actually are. An unprotected container is also subject to repeated freezing/thawing so it is a difficult environment.
Out of curiosity, I googled this plant and looked at all of the links from pg. 1 of the search. It seems to be a new cultivar available for only a few years, most of the sites that sell it are in UK and have no info about winter hardiness. Most of UK is zone 8. I did find this, "Temperature Tolerance: A hardy plant which should survive normal winter conditions outside, especially if protected from the hardest frosts." That doesn't sound good since you're in NJ.
If it were my plant (in NJ,) I would consider it as only hardy to a higher zone and dig a hole for the container near the house and cover with a big pile of leaves.
I've also given up on Moonbeam altho' I think it's the prettiest one out there. I can't keep it alive and I'm tired of spending limited garden funds replacing it year after year. It's sterile so the seeds won't germinate which makes winter sowing it a dead end (pun intended). Zagreb is a stronger yellow but it's an amazing performer so I've resigned myself to just dividing that and planting it around the garden.
Since her coreopsis has re-seeded I'm guessing it's not one of the threadleaf varieties. I no longer grow any of the other varieties but when I did I left them over winter. If more plants than I wanted survived the winter I dug them out, moved, gave away etc. the extras in spring.
Earlier I couldn't see these pictures. I'm glad I checked back. How fun to have such a nice size apple tree from seed. I like the picture of the Anemonopsis Macrophyllae with the mossy tree in the background.
Michelle
Looking great Bug, love that Anemonopsis!
Deanne